to remove two-column,resize your browser window to narrow

app arch – civil engineer or a salesman, sg^U.S.

I feel in Singapore context, “architect” is more likely to refer to a hands-off role. In the US, I never meet an architect who doesn’t writes code hands-on at least half his time.

A real app architect in finance (different from professional software product vendors) really needs hands-on capabilities. Her output is not just on paper, but in code. If her design (not the document but the “key ideas” implemented) doesn’t work, she must roll up her sleeves and make it work. Most of those ideas are low level, like some serialization or some threading construct, and require just one good developer. In that sense it’s not unlike a library module.

In this context, architect is the name of the technical lead of ANY dev team. Often known as lead developer, in a smaller team.

Any dev team needs a technical leader. Half the time, the team manager or the project manager is technical enough to lead a suppor team but not a dev team, so an architect is needed. Often, the architect is the only leader.

The pre-sales architect is very different. Castle in the sand. Imaginary buildings.

Update: I feel in the US I could become a lead developer, once I become familiar with a codebase, but any role that requires a lot of persuasion I’m not too sure. I feel if my technical grasp of everything is higher than the rest then it’s possible. It’s all relative.